Guide

A guide is a person who leads travelers or tourists through unknown or unfamiliar locations. The term can also be applied to a person who leads others to more abstract goals such as knowledge or wisdom.

Travel and recreation

Explorers in the past venturing into territory unknown by their own people invariably hired guides. Lewis and Clark hired Sacagawea to help them explore the American West, and Wilfred Thesiger hired guides in the deserts that he ventured into, such as Kuri on his journey to the Tibesti Mountains in 1938.

Tour guide

Tour guides lead visitors through tourist attractions and give information about the attractions' natural and cultural significance. Often, they also act as interpreters for travellers who do not speak the local language. Automated systems like audio tours are sometimes substituted for human tour guides. Tour operators often hire guides to lead tourist groups.

Mountain guide

Mountain guides are those employed in mountaineering; these are not merely to show the way but stand in the position of professional climbers with an expert knowledge of rock and snowcraft, which they impart to the amateur, at the same time assuring the safety of the climbing party. This professional class of guides arose in the middle of the 19th century when Alpine climbing became recognized as a sport.

Guide is often distributed to "Earliteen" and "Junior" Sabbath School students at the end of class and provides a Bible study guide for the week. Since its beginning, Guide has been popular reading during the church service for young people.

Guide to information sources

A Guide to information sources (or a bibliographic guide, a literature guide, a guide to reference materials, a subject gateway, etc.) is a kind of metabibliography. Ideally it is not just a listing of bibliographies, reference works and other information sources, but more like a textbook introducing users to the information sources in a given field (in general).

Such guides may have many different forms: Comprehensive or highly selective, printed or electronic sources, annoteted listings or written chapters etc.

Functions

Often used as curriculum tools for bibliographic instruction, the guides help library users find materials or help those unfamiliar with a discipline understand the key sources.